


Steel Frame

by FrodaB



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Torture, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:22:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrodaB/pseuds/FrodaB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She looks fragile, sometimes, but she is most decidedly </i>not<i>.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Steel Frame

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/11005.html?thread=22295549#t22295549) prompt at [](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/profile)[**inception_kink**](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/). Warnings for kidnapping and violence/torture. This is shameless hurt/comfort, emphasis on the comfort, and a lot fluffier than it sounds. Thanks to the wonderful [](http://thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com/profile)[**thewlisian_afer**](http://thewlisian-afer.livejournal.com/) for beta'ing.

There are times when she looks very young, young and fragile. Arthur reflects on this as he watches her, at the airport. Her bag is slung over her shoulder and her eyes are quiet, guarded as they check the departures board and seek the correct gate.

She can do it intentionally, of course, when she wants. Not often, only when necessity dictates, but Arthur has seen it. She did it to get information out of a mark, once, and he watched her eyes get rounder, her mouth turn down slightly, her posture alter, fold in on herself.

Usually, when it happens, though, it's unconscious. Like now.

He never knows what to do, when she looks like that.

\--------------

"That would work, but we still need someone to cover this exit," Arthur says, pointing at the layout.

Cobb nods. "Another pair of eyes."

"Guess I'm going under with you," Ariadne says, from her worktable twenty feet away. "Good thing; I've been jonesing for some excitement." She hasn't gone under with them on a job for a couple of months, and her eyes are sparkling.

Arthur doesn't give it a second thought; she always makes herself useful.

Besides, he knows from long experience that when she gets that wicked look on her face, she's going to get _exactly_ what she wants, no matter what.

\-------------

She looks fragile, sometimes, but she is most decidedly _not_. Her body is small, and soft (he has it memorized, knows how it feels, pliant and warm in his arms), but she has a core of steel, she's clever, tough, and adaptable. She can take care of herself.

(The first time she kills him in a dream, it's because he asks her to, to teach her what it's like, and she gets a hard look on her face, but she doesn't protest, just points the gun and pulls the trigger and when she wakes she only asks him to hold her. So he does.)

"I don't want to think for a while," she says, and so he takes her to Tokyo. So bright, and busy, and old and new at the same time, and so _fast_ , it's a good place to stop thinking.

\-------------

The job goes just as planned - that is, until they wake. The train conductor bribed to keep people away from the compartment as they slept sold them out, and a couple of thugs have bound them all, gagged them, and drag Cobb and Arthur out, to another compartment.

Ariadne is left there, with the Mark, and the last sight Arthur has of her is her eyes, wide with fear, as another thug prepares to administer another dose of Somnacin.

\-------------

"So you'll take me to Monkey Mountain, right?" she asks with a little smile as she tosses her bag onto the bed of the hotel suite they've just checked into.

"Whatever you want." He means it. Whatever she wants, however long she wants.

He recalls, ruefully, that she's been bugging him to take a vacation for about six weeks now.

Her smile isn't quite right; not the way it should be at the prospect of seeing what he'd described as one of the best views in the world. It's strained, at the edges.

He spends the first week in Tokyo, lying on the sofa every night, listening to her not sleep.

\-------------

Three minutes. Three _excruciating_ minutes, it takes them, to get free of their bonds, neutralize their attackers. Another minute-twenty to get back to the compartment.

Another eighty seconds to beat Ariadne's watcher into submission.

She won't wake.

"Shit." Cobb's face is pinched, and he looks at Arthur apologetically.

Arthur yanks a line from the PASIV, sits down. "I'll get her."

\-------------

He takes her to the mountain the second week. The dark circles under her eyes are a little less pronounced. She sleeps, fitfully.

He's still on the couch.

She looks out at the view, sitting on a bench, smiles a little in that pinched way she's been doing, says, "this is beautiful, Arthur, thank you for sharing it with me."

She brushes his knuckles with her fingers, the first time she's touched him in well over a week.

\-------------

They have her in the vault, of course. Arthur has no idea what to expect, what they think they might accomplish, keeping her under, what they plan to do to her.

He finds out quickly - he can hear her cries even from the lobby of the bank she'd designed.

Arthur gets only a glimpse of her as he busies himself taking out the security guards - but a glimpse is all he needs. A searing brand mark on her chest, two fingers missing, bruises and cuts, blood marring her pale skin.

He's on autopilot, barely hears the gunshots, the yells, the shuffling of struggling bodies.

All he can hear is her, choking on his name.

He pulls her to his chest, and her breathing is labored (the brand probably did some damage to her lungs _but this isn't real_ ). He kisses her hair, and pulls the trigger.

\-------------

He takes her to dinner at a ridiculously expensive, pretentious restaurant. She smiles, makes fun of the menu, tries everything and makes little faces at him.

None of it quite reaches her eyes - they're still wary, shuttered. Walled up away from him.

Arthur is patient; he'll wait as long as it takes.

\-------------

"Get her out of here," he hisses to Cobb when they've woken, and all she can do is make little whimpering sobs, still trying to catch her breath.

Cobb doesn't question, just does as he's told; picking her up and sliding the door closed behind them.

Arthur's movements are slow and methodical. He pulls his gun out. Attaches a silencer. Cleans up the mess.

He leaves four corpses behind.  
\------------

Two weeks, and the first night Ariadne pulls him into the bed with her feels like a major breakthrough.

Arthur takes a deep breath, his face pressed into her hair, feeling like he hasn't been breathing properly since that day, on the train.

She sleeps, a little. It's fitful, restless, and she ends up pulling away from him, taking most of the sheets with her. Arthur just watches.

\------------

None of them says a word until they get off the train. Ariadne has her arms wrapped around herself, staring at the floor. Cobb looks at Arthur, then out the window. Arthur watches her.

"What did they do to her?" Cobb asks him quietly as they're gathering their bags.

"They hurt her."

That's all the answer he needs to give, and Cobb nods at him.

The next day, Arthur tells Cobb that he and Ariadne are going away for a while. Cobb just tells him to travel safely.

\-------------

In the morning, she examines herself in the mirror, tugging down her tank top to look at pale, unblemished skin where once, an imaginary brand had marked her, searing the flesh.

"Almost two hours, they had me," she says, her voice softer than was her wont.

Arthur stands in the doorway of the bathroom, a constant, quiet presence. Not demanding. "What did they want?" he asks.

"To know our employer. To know who you and Cobb were. The obvious stuff."

They'd chosen the weakest member of the team - a woman, the youngest, small and not physically imposing.

Arthur doesn't ask her if she gave them any information.

He knows she didn't, because she is not the weakest.

\------------

He takes her to an amusement park, and they don't really do anything except buy some overpriced food and wander around, watching the people.

She takes his hand, twining their fingers together, and says, "Thanks." And then, "Let's go back to the hotel."

He's just barely shut the door behind them when her hands start pulling him towards the bedroom and tugging at his clothes simultaneously. She's got undressing him down to an art - a very efficient one, at that.

Her skin under his hands is not scarred. There are no burn marks, no welts, bruises or cuts to avoid. But he's careful, all the same, letting her take the lead, letting her breathe into his ear, letting her push him onto the bed, climb on top of him.

Arthur traces patterns on her hips as she rides him, her pace slow, her hands pressing into his chest. Her hair hangs in a curtain around her face, and he pulls her into a kiss. More than anything, he's missed the way her mouth is always a little sweet.

When she comes, she opens her eyes, looks at him, and the wary look she's had for weeks is finally gone, at least for this moment.

\--------------

"Tomorrow, we should go to one of those shrines," she says, later, her body familiar and warm and pliant in his arms.

Arthur looks at her, raises his head, and she meets his look with a little smile. She never asks, just tells him what they'll do. He smiles back at her.

Core of steel. She'll be all right.


End file.
